May 7, 2004

Picasso Painting Sets Record for Auction Sale

By CAROL VOGEL

Picasso certainly is the flavor of the
week," said Nancy Whyte, a private dealer, as the gavel fell on the final
lot of Sotheby's sale of Impressionist and modern art last night.

Still reeling from the sale of a 1905 Picasso
for a record-breaking $104.1 million on Wednesday night, Sotheby's was
testing slightly more modest market levels with an auction of Impressionist
and modern art from various owners. The sale totaled $96 million, just
shy of its high estimate, $99 million. Of the 52 works, only 10 went unsold.
Picassos from various periods were stars, and many brought particularly
strong prices.

"It's a brand name," Ms. Whyte said. Tobias
Meyer, director of Sotheby's contemporary-art department and the evening's
auctioneer, said: "Consciously or subconsciously, something is going on
with the Picasso market. Last night's record price definitely had an effect
on tonight's sale."

Despite the Picasso fever, the evening's
top seller was one of Monet's paintings of water lilies, this one executed
from 1917 to 1919. It is large - 39 3/8 inches by 79 inches - and like
many other late "Water Lilies" canvases, it is unsigned but stamped with
the artist's signature by his son Michel. Mr. Meyer took the offers slowly
and steadily as three telephone bidders went after the painting. It finally
sold to an unidentified telephone bidder for $16.8 million, far above
its $12 million high estimate.

(Final prices include Sotheby's commission:
20 percent of the first $100,000 and 12 percent of the rest. Estimates
do not reflect commissions.)

The Monet had Hollywood cachet: it was
being sold from the collection of the movie producer Ray Stark and his
wife, Fran, and had hung in their West Hollywood home until his death
in January. (Mrs. Stark died in 1992.) It was not the only work owned
by the Starks that brought a high price. Braque's "Woman With Guitar"
(1931), one of the artist's Cubist interpretations of a classical subject,
sold to a telephone bidder for $2.1 million. It had been estimated at
$1.5 million to $2 million.

Five telephone bidders vied for Picasso's
"Rescue," a colorful 1932 scene of bathers on the beach executed one summer
at Boisgeloup, France, brought the evening's second-highest price. Sotheby's
estimated the painting would fetch $10 million to $15 million; it brought
$14.7 million.

Late Picassos have been quite the rage
recently, as was certainly the case last night. Five serious bidders wanted
to take home "Seated Nude" (1959), a large sculptural image of a woman.
Doris Ammann, a Zurich dealer, bought the painting for $11.7 million,
nearly three times its $4 million high estimate.

Among themes in his work, Picasso was as
fascinated with artists as he was with women. "The Painter in a Hat" (1965),
a 1965 image of an artist holding a brush, brought $1.1 million, after
an estimate of $750,000 to $1 million. The buyer was David Nahmad, the
Manhattan dealer.

Five bidders wanted Picasso's 1947 "Still
Life With Coffeepot," a somber painting of a simple kitchen table with
a white vase and a blue coffeepot set against a bare wall. Five people
bid on the painting, which Mr. Nahmad bought for $2.5 million, above its
$2 million high estimate.

One of the evening's gems, Gris's "Marble
Table," was among five works being sold by Ruth G. Hardman, a businesswoman
and philanthropist who died in January. A still life of a marble console
with a book on it and a mirror hanging above, the work is unusual because
it incorporates materials like a piece of a mirror in the composition.
Sotheby's thought it would sell for $4.5 million to $6.5 million. Four
bidders went for the painting, which sold for $7.4 million.

Another painting from the Hardman estate,
Modigliani's "Young Girl With a Collar" (1915), became one of the evening's
casualties. When Mr. Meyer saw the salesroom go dead, he stopped trying
at $1.2 million, under its $1.5 million low estimate.

When a classic Impressionist painting
comes up for sale, collectors jump. Last night the Wadsworth Atheneum
in Hartford and the heirs of an unidentified patron, who left half the
painting to them and half to the museum, were selling Renoir's "Young
Girls With Lilacs." Four bidders wanted the work, which sold to a telephone
bidder for $5.4 million, in the middle of its estimate, $4 million to
$6 million. The painting, from about 1890, depicts Julie Manet, the 12-year-old
daughter of Berthe Morisot and Eugène Manet, brother of the artist
Édouard Manet, wearing an elaborate hat festooned with roses as her
cousin Paulette Gobillard, in her early teens, handles a bouquet of blooming
lilacs.

A Matisse cutout from 1949-50, "The Four
Rosettes With Blue Motifs," brought $2.5 million, its low estimate. David
C. Norman, a co-director of Sotheby's Impressionist and modern art department,
took the winning bid for a client who was bidding by telephone.

A record was set for Balthus by "Golden
Afternoon" (1957), a scene of a young woman napping on a boldly patterned
sofa in front of an open window. The painting brought $3.8 million, just
under its low estimate of $4 million. The price may have been less than
Sotheby's had hoped, but the painting was not fresh to the market. Before
the sale, several dealers said it had been shopped around before being
consigned to Sotheby's.

After the sale, Sotheby's computers tallied
up its day and evening sales this week at $314.8 million, the highest
figure the auction house has seen since 1990. The strong results surprised
even Sotheby's experts. "All the major lots with wall power did extremely
well," Mr. Norman said. "This is a market with depth and breadth."